Diversity is imperative to all workplaces. People with different backgrounds and experiences, who form a team, can develop unique ideas to keep the company growing and prospering. Despite this, companies in many industries and roles are not benefiting from this because they are dominated by a single gender. For example, tech industry roles are usually occupied by men, while nursing roles are women centric. In both cases, the customers are more diverse than the people serving them—which doesn’t bode well for understanding their needs. It’s crucial to propagate gender diversity in the workplace in order to serve your customers better.
Workday, which offers enterprise-level software solutions for financial management, human resources, and planning, recently hosted a panel discussion Happy HR Hour, on the topic of Diversity & Inclusion to elucidate on examples of how technologies can be leveraged to promote gender equality in the workplace.
They leverage on technologies to help promote gender parity within their workplace. The Chief Talent Officer at Workday, for example, uses Workday-powered diversity dashboard to help monitor pay equity, time-to-promotion and turnover rate in our company.
By turning employee data into insights, they are able to constantly evaluate their diversity efforts and provide better support for women to progress in their careers. They also mask the bio data of interviewees during the hiring process so that any unconscious bias is eliminated from the process subsequently allowing candidates to be hired solely based on their merits.
At Unit4, a software company that designs and delivers enterprise software and ERP solutions they are creating change through a variety of initiatives that look to offer a holistic cultural shift to embrace diversity and gender equality.
These include providing flexible working arrangements for working mothers, driving networking opportunities across different levels, and setting up mentorship programmes to support employee growth.
They believe in promoting an inclusive working environment that not only takes into account each individual’s contributions but also looks at their responsibilities outside of the office and in the community.
This approach is fuelled by their belief that the people-centric approach combined with a concerted effort to protect organisational diversity, goes a long way in advancing gender equality in the workplace.
Oracle Women Leadership (OWL) is one of the women leadership activities within Oracle. This programme started in 2006 within the customer services organization and quickly grew into a corporate-wide programme. It is a leadership and professional development programme for current and emerging women leaders at the company.
It also offers both male and female employees the opportunity to enhance their skills and develop their leadership potential through workshops, conferences, mentoring, networking events and more.
They believe that the OWL programme helps women achieve their career goals and present an opportunity for them to achieve their ambitions alongside capable and smart women who will support them in every step of the way.
Through OWL, Oracle has engaged more than 7,000 employees in over 40 countries that represent over 90 OWL communities. Empowering women to reach their leadership potential is the main focus of OWL.
Accenture believes “that no one should be discriminated against because of their differences, such as age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, religion or sexual orientation.” Diversity training within the company is broken into 3 different categories; 1) Diversity Awareness – to help people understand the advantages of working with a diverse organisation, 2) Diversity Management – to enable executives to handle diverse teams and 3) Professional Development – to enable women, LGBT and ethnically diverse employees to develop their skills and ensure success.
Johnson & Johnson: The organisation’s Global Diversity and Inclusion vision is “to maximise the global power of diversity and inclusion to drive superior business results and sustainable competitive advantage.” How they’re making this happen is through employee resource groups, mentoring programmes and ‘Diversity University’, which is a dynamic website that helps employees to understand the benefits of working collaboratively. The Chief Diversity officer also reports directly to the CEO and Chairman of Johnson & Johnson, meaning that the whole operation is being overseen by top-level management.
Marriott International surpasses expectations when it comes to creating an inclusive guest experience to their workforce around the globe. Women-owned business enterprises account for about up 10% of Marriott’s supply chain and by 2020, they aim to have 1,500 open hotels owned by diverse partners and women.
We are of the opinion that it will take government and business-led interventions to form an environment that offers women better opportunities; equips them to train for and work in skilled, better-paying roles; reshapes social norms and attitudes; and supports work–life balance. To reach this objective, companies have to transform themselves by re-evaluating their traditional performance models and simultaneously challenging prevailing leadership styles in terms of their long-term viability.
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